REVIEW: Mist by Susan Krinard

Mist by Susan Krinard
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The book started off strong but then slid downhill towards the middle and never climbed back up. By the end, things were a mess.

+ the characters

Mist was a strong heroine. She didn’t blindly follow the gods, her superiors, and thought for herself. She moved on with her life, finding new reasons to live in a world that didn’t require her service as a Valkyrie anymore and a belief in magic would institutionalize a person. When confronted with dangers that should have been dead with the past she quickly accepted her new reality, which was actually old since the peace turned out to be nothing but a long interlude and the end of the world has yet to happen. Best of all, she asked questions that should have been asked and took nothing at face value.

Unfortunately, what ruined my liking for the heroine was the many bad decisions she made and how she took issue with things she didn’t have the luxury to take. For someone who moved on and left her warrior ways behind, to be specific didn’t improve herself as a warrior and her magic anymore, she was too bold to the point of foolishness in her confrontation of the bad guys. Only by luck and the strained help of other paranormals and the fact that the villains were equally ill-prepared and partaking hubris did Mist prevail in her battles. I wished her quick acceptance of new things extended to her hidden divine heritage and abilities because in lieu of her rusty warrior skills and the dearth of comrades, her super magic was virtually the only advantage she had.

Dainn, Mist’s love interest, was worse than Mist. I didn’t care for his POV. While the things said in his introspection confirmed my hunches and provided elucidation, they didn’t compensate for melodrama that peppered his thinking. Dude was such an emo. The romance between Dainn and Mist was ham-fisted and unpersuasive.

If Dainn’s POV was bad and unnecessary, Loki’s POV was the worst and definitely unnecessary. Loki was a big reason why I didn’t like the book. He fell short — way short — of my expectation as the main villain, his characterization an amateur attempt of an evil mastermind. The scenes told in his POV were nothing more than evil-doing masturbation (figuratively of course, although...). I understood that he use sex as a weapon, but I hated how he tried to seduce Freya, Mist, and Dainn to point that he became a one-trick pony. Not to mention the fucked up love web. Honestly, was there anyone who he hadn’t try to seduce? Dude wasn’t an evil mastermind, he was an outright douchebag whose dick did most of the thinking.

Last but not least were Ryan and Gabi, magically talented homeless kids who Mist saved and incidentally became their guardian. I didn’t like the kids because they were so pitiful, serving little purpose beyond being cannon fodder.

+ the plot

Some of the scenes were a tad too lengthy. The biggest offenders were the smack talking scenes between Loki and the heroes, which were too long and too awkward to believe. I didn’t need to a single brain cell to realize that those dreadful scenes were nothing more than a clumsy “showing, not telling” approach to avoid info-dumping.

The climax was where the plot hit rock bottom as Dainn confronted Loki by himself and relied on the pure chance that his inner beast of a curse would be powerful enough to defeat Loki. *facepalm* Of course, Mist wouldn’t accept that so she tried to crash the event only and predictably to be taken hostage because girl was worse prepared than Dainn and barely a competent warrior. She too relied on on the pure chance that her super magic would be powerful enough to defeat Loki. *double facepalm*

Just when it seemed things couldn’t be worse, it got worse when the story mentioned, this time with a little more depth, Ragnarok and how the war was a game between Freya and Loki. A game? This was a game the gods were playing? Really? Why the fuck was this important shit of information heavily glossed over the in the near beginning when it was first mentioned? Bad enough there was a plot hole immediately in the beginning, in the prologue, when no reasons were given for why the Valkyries and their fellow Norse never stayed in contact with each other whatsoever when common sense dictated that they should have.

In Conclusion

I rated Mist 2-stars for it was okay. Everything from the characters to the plot to the world building were poorly developed. To readers who plan to pick up the series, I strongly recommend borrowing over buying it. If you want to read something like Mist, an exclusively Norse-mythology based Urban Fantasy, but as a better book, I recommend Norse Code.

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